Today went very smoothly, woke up and got on the road right on schedule. I was supposed to ride with Dean but we accidently put 4 guys in the pace line so I ended up going with Hayden and Max which was great because it has been a while since I was on the bike with those guys and they are both strong cyclists, I was also fine with it because Dean was given the sweeps jerseys so I got out of being sweeps. The roads getting out of Sedalia for the first 5 miles were rough, grates going across the entire shoulder, debris all over, and bumpy roads. Not enjoyable but soon after we got a nice shoulder which lasted for a while until we had no shoulder and road most of the rest of the ride on a small pretty empty two lane highway, cars and trucks were for the most part very nice to us. The road had a lot of turns and hills and blind sections but the cars waited behind us until they could safely pass. I had a lot of fun on the ride, Max was struggling a little and Hayden was powering through with me but hating the hills. I thought they were great. The climbs weren’t too bad although we did have a lot of them, there was one killer one that was steep and 2.5 miles long with a very unsatisfying short downhill. The best part was a handful of really fast downhill sections with some fun curves and banks that we could coast down at 30+ mph. One hill we approached looked pretty steep and as we got closer and closer it was looking steeper and steeper, we got to the peak at 18 mph and by the time we got down the hill we were going 38 just coasting, it was a blast. We were moving quick all day, definitely not taking it easy on the ride at all, we passed all the pace lines in the first 10 miles and hadn’t seen another one at any of the crew stops and were red flagged a couple times to wait for a van to leap frog and mark the next turn so everyone was pretty spread out. Just after one red flag we crossed over the Missouri River and at mile 45 I got a flat. Once I put a new tube on Hayden tells us we have just over an hour to make it 20 miles to get to the rack point. That put some fire in my legs and I took off pulling at 20+ mph for a long flat section. I was crossing my fingers it would be flat for the next 20 miles but it was very much not flat. Conquered some rolling hills, another red flag, and a couple long climbs including that 2.5 mile one before we hit 65 miles at 11:13 just before rack. It was awesome pushing that hard with Max and Hayden, jamming out on the bike. The last 10 miles we took pretty slow, steep rolling hills one after another after another until we finally got to lodging. We ended up being the only pace line to finish the whole ride, everyone else was racked before the 65 mile point and we showed up to lodging before the vans had even gotten there. That is the first time only one pace line has made it, it was pretty cool that we were able to push ourselves that hard on the bike, making leaps and bounds in my skills on a bike, it is very cool.
Lodging and meals here are amazing. We are staying at Mizzou in the Kappa Delta Sorority house which is so luxurious, it is huge, amazing decorations, furniture, massive kitchen great rooms, and 4 floors, so crazy. When we got inside we see the dining area with tables filled with snacks one of our sponsors got for us, it was perfect, and I was so hungry at that point. Once everyone got to the house we walked to chipotle to pick up our lunch and got to go through the center of campus, it was amazing, so green, and beautiful architecture, this campus is incredible. All the greek houses here are insane, huge gorgeous buildings I am very jealous. After showers we headed to the downtown area that they call the district to find a local coffee shop, we ended up at Kaldi’s coffeehouse with great coffee. Evan and I walked around to check out more of the district before heading back to lodging. His grandma was a Tri Delt here so we wondered around the greek village to check out all the amazing houses and get a picture of the Tri Delt house for his grandma. Seriously every house was amazing, Delta Upsilon is building one across the street from us and the rendering we saw of it on the fence looked so sick I couldn’t even believe it. Our dinner was cooked for us in lodging, hamburgers and hot dogs with all the sides and desserts.
The rest of the night has just been relaxing and watching TV on KD’s crazy comfortable couches. Tomorrow we have a long day, 100 miles and rumors are that we are going to hate the roads, rumble strips across the whole shoulder, but really that sounds like what we have been on for most of the summer so I’m not too worried about it. On the bright side, we have a lovely lady cooking us a hot breakfast before we leave, very much looking forward to that to start the day.
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